A new study shows a huge rise of birth defects in Iraq particularly in the area of Fallujah where “more than half of all babies surveyed were born with a birth defect between 2007 and 2010.

This should come as no surprise to many of us who felt that what occurred in Fallujah was a crime against humanity and spoke of white phosphorus being used which the pentagon itself later admitted to using.

It is in light of this sad new that I repost my thoughts on this many years ago.

Abraham’s One Percent Doctrine and the Criminal U.S. Assault on Fallujah

by Joshua Madson

In the books of Matthew and Luke there is this radical statement from John the Baptist, “do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.”1 For centuries the Jewish people had considered themselves chosen by virtue of their lineage. They claimed lineage from the great patriarch Abraham and with it the covenant right to occupy Palestine. They considered themselves a chosen nation written on God’s very hands. John, like most prophets, challenged the very foundation of their national and religious narrative. What made Israel chosen or special if God could raise up children of Abraham from mere stones? In the last week of Jesus’ life he taught what it meant to be a child of Abraham and contrasted that with the works of the devil, specifically murder: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did… You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning.”2 Jesus made clear that being a child of Abraham was explicitly tied to our deeds and our desires. Jesus also taught that murder is a work of the devil which stands in stark contrast to compassion.

The prophet Abraham

What are the works of Abraham and how can we become children of Abraham? Jewish, Islamic and Christian traditions all revere Abraham and yet we rarely do his works. Often when we think of Abraham’s works we think of the Akedah or binding of Isaac. Certainly this is a significant event in Abraham’s life but there are also other works we would do well to remember. From the very beginning, Abraham’s great commission was to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. Throughout Abraham’s life he practiced hospitality with all those he came in contact with. Perhaps the best illustration of Abraham’s compassion is his pleading on behalf of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sodom and Gomorrah were the most wicked cities in all of Canaan. The Book of Genesis relates that, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah” was so great, and the sins of their inhabitants so blatant, that God had to “go down” to see it for himself to believe it.3 And yet when Abraham learned the cities would be destroyed by fire, Abraham had compassion and pled their cause. Unlike Vice President Cheney, who advocates bombing and invading an entire country for the sake of a few evil men, Abraham knew that if there were even a handful of innocents living in those two cities, the cost of destroying them would be too high. Abraham advocated vigorously with the Lord to save even the wicked for the sake of the innocent. At some level we must address the implications of Abraham’s works towards Sodom and Gomorrah. What does he tell us about the innocent victims in war, about what the military has termed collateral damage?

It is common for us to speak of the United States as a chosen land. We often hear it compared to a city on a hill, a beacon of light, a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values. But we, like ancient Israel, forget that it is one’s desires and works that matter and not the narratives and labels we give ourselves.

In 2004, we again had the opportunity to choose whose works we would do. The Iraqi city of Fallujah was the site of the brutal murder of four American private security workers who were burnt, dragged, and hung from a bridge over the Euphrates River. Fallujah had become synonymous with the Iraqi insurgency, synonymous with everything that was supposedly wrong about Iraq. Much like Sodom and Gomorrah, it was considered by the US government and media as the most wicked city in the land. Lieutenant Colonel Gary Brandl perhaps described our attitude best, “The enemy has got a face. He’s called Satan. He’s in Falluja. And we’re going to destroy him.”4 However, unlike with the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, there was no Abraham in the US government, or if there was, his voice fell on deaf ears. There in the ancient homeland of the great Abraham, the United States Military rained fire from the sky and committed one of the most brutal massacres of the war to date.

In early April 2004, around 2,000 troops from the US 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, supported by jet fighters and attack helicopters, assaulted Fallujah in an effort to defeat Sunni resistant groups there. As the urban battle with resistance fighters and local residents wore on, the death toll began to mount. Doctors from the local hospital reported 600 Iraqi dead, most of them civilians, including women and children.5 The Marines responded to the doctors’ reports by closing the main hospital, a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions. Ibrahim Younis, the Iraq emergency coordinator for Médecins sans Frontières, visited Falluja during the two week assault, and reported that, “The Americans put a sniper position on top of the hospital’s water tower and had troops in the single-storey building . . . The hospital had four operating theatres, which could no longer be used. If they had been working, it would have saved many lives.”6 A public relations disaster occurred as images and video surfaced resembling mass murder rather than a battle. As the assault became increasingly unpopular internationally, the Marines agreed to an uneasy ceasefire, leaving the city outside their control, and setting the stage for a second assault six months later.

Corpses of Iraqis killed in Falluja by US Forces

The second U.S. assault on Fallujah, in November 2004, was originally code named, appropriately, “Thanksgiving Massacre” before the British encouraged a more modest name change to “Phantom Fury.”7 It began with nearly two months of aerial attacks. The city was cordoned off, and food, water, and power were cut off in an effort to put strain on the local population. Some 300,000 Fallujans abandoned their homes and fled the city for safety, passing through US military checkpoints. Contrary to the Geneva Convention, any male under age 45 was denied exit and forced back by gunpoint, while machine-gun nests killed anyone who tried to escape across the Euphrates River.8

On November 18, 2004 some 12,000 troops invaded Fallujah. In an effort to control information during the second assault, the first target of operation Phantom Fury was the Fallujah hospital, “because the US military believed it was the source of rumors about heavy casualties [during the first assault]. ‘It’s a center of propaganda,’ a senior American officer said.”9 The hospital’s staff was captured and snipers were positioned on the roofs of hospitals once again. The remaining population, unable to flee and consisting of 30,000 to 50,000 civilians, was considered enemy combatants.10 This means that the same measures the U.S. military used to kill alleged insurgents (described further below), were inevitably used against civilians.

Houses, schools, and mosques were ravaged. According to Fallujah’s compensation commissioner, 36,000 of the city’s 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines.11 Fallujans were also illegally denied medical treatment from Iraq’s Red Crescent.12 One US commander described the rules of engagement: “If you see someone with a cell phone, put a bullet in their f—ing head.”13 An AP photographer described US helicopters killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. “There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone. With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds.”14

The attack against Fallujah was made even more horrific by the use of thermobaric weapons, white phosphorous, and possibly an advanced form of napalm.15 One of the weapons used by the marines was equipped with thermobaric warheads, also known as a “fuel-air” weapon. This weapon was specifically designed to raze buildings. Fuel-Air weapons are known for creating a cloud of volatile gases which “is then ignited and the subsequent fireball sears the surrounding area while consuming the oxygen in this area. The lack of oxygen creates an enormous overpressure … Personnel under the cloud are literally crushed to death.” Marines used these weapons to clear structures, assuming anyone inside any house or building must be an insurgent, ignoring the fact that roughly 50,000 civilians remained in the city.16

US assault on Fallujah

There is also evidence that white phosphorous was used as a weapon and not solely for illumination as originally stated by the US State Department. In fact, the US State Department later issued a correction noting that Field Artillery magazine revealed that white phosphorous had in fact been used “as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes ….”17 This was likely more than psychological, however, as according to the BBC, anyone exposed to these weapons would have experienced the following: “Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful… These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears… it could burn right down to the bone.”18 To avoid such a fate, insurgents would have to leave their fortified positions, at which point they could be slaughtered by conventional U.S. attacks. Field Artillery describes how Marines, “fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using [White Phosphorous] to flush them out and [High Explosives] to take them out.”19

Before the invasion of Fallujah, Sgt. Maj. Carlton W. Kent spoke of the coming battle of Fallujah as being no different than the capture of the ancient city of Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive in Viet Nam. “You’re all in the process of making history. This is another Hue city in the making. I have no doubt, if we do get the word, that each and every one of you is going to do what you have always done — kick some butt.”20

Perhaps, when we remember wars we should do as Kurt Vonnegut suggested “we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. That would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns.”21 How many innocents does it take in a Fallujah before we refuse to destroy it? Abraham was willing to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for a handful of innocents and yet we are willing to engage in the barbarism of the highest order; innocents be damned. What does the destruction of Fallujah say about our nation, our narrative, and our city on a hill? Who is our father if we cannot even approach the works of Abraham?

7 thoughts on “Thanksgiving Massacre of Fallujah and its victims – 8 years later”

the problem is that someone like *myself*–a small person . . . a person nobody knows–

what can *I* do?

I have stayed out of the military and begged my family and friends to do so–

but what else can be done?

Oh, the wickedness, the wickedness–

I wish I could tear my clothes and put ashes on my head–

what do Mormons do to mourn this kind of thing?

I remember feeling the same way during the 60s/Viet Nam, but as a Mormon young person (I’m in my 60s) I didn’t dare to speak out; if you weren’t alive then, you don’t remember how those of *us* who didn’t think the war was a good idea feared the censure of our leaders and elders (family/friends)–

people who protested the war were considered evil–

it’s all so turned around–

finally, in 1990 I started to speak up and out–

I had had enough of silence–

but now–

and neither of the two presidential candidates (the mainstream ones) give a care about the lives of those in the middle east or the suicides of the foolish young people who have gone into the military–

it feels hopeless, and *we* LDS are among the worst for denying the truth–

sorry to be so cynical–

Thank you; I need to read this, if only so that I don’t feel so alone in my feelings about these hideous wars–

I served with the First Marine Division in Fallujah in 2004 as a doctor.
I saw many fine young Marines and Navy men cut down in the prime of life, men who could have and should have gone on to have families and contribute to the welfare of their nation.
I was appalled at the terrible waste!
For a time after I returned home I hated the Iraqi people.
After a while my vision cleared and I came to see most clearly that the people I should be angry with are the LYING politicians in Washington DC.
Those LYING MURDERERS are waging illegal immoral wars of aggression around the world, killing innocent US military and foreign nationals by thousands and hundreds of thousands.

I WILL NEVER AGAIN VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN WHO ADVOCATES, JUSTIFIES, CONDONES, OR ESPOUSES WAGING A WAR OF AGGRESSION IN A FOREIGN LAND.

Any politician, no matter how pretty his smooth face, no matter what his religious background, no matter how slick his speech, who advocates waging war in a foreign land “to make the world safe for democracy” or some such smooth sounding slogan is a MURDEROUS LIAR.

This is the same sin Cain committed against his brother Abel…it is just another version of murder to get gain.
JR

History is written by the winner of a conflict and the truth is the first casualty.
Who gets away with genocide depends on the current political environment.
We scolded Hitler, Stalin, Musolini, Amin, Pol Pot just to name a few.
Other Mass murderers lived or still live a very comfortable live. Already dead are Truman, Harris, Stalin. Those still living are G.W.Bush, Wulferwitz, Rumpsfeld, Blair, Howard, just to name the most vicious. The Geneve Convention means very little. Its only there to extract more humiliation from the looser.